The China of Chiang K'ai-Shek: A Political Study — Background and Themes

(0 User reviews) 384

In Category - Government

Authors: Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony, 1913-1966 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2015 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: China -- Politics and government -- 1912-1949; Chiang, Kai-shek, 1887-1975 Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 146,290

Reading time 637 min

Text sections 23

The source record for The China of Chiang K'ai-Shek: A Political Study — Background and Themes measures this digital text at 146,290 words, 10 hr 37 min estimated reading time, and 23 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 22.3 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “China -- Politics and government -- 1912-1949,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #50465

A political study of China under Chiang K'ai-shek, examining government structure, factional dynamics, and wartime mobilization through the lens of an American scholar who interviewed key figures in 1940s Chungking.

Editorial Edition Score 4.9/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg50465

Read the Text

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 50465-h.htm or 50465-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50465/50465-h/50465-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50465/50465-h.zip)

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).

Small capitals are presented as all capitals in this e-text.

THE CHINA OF CHIANG K'AI-SHEK:

PAUL M. A. LINEBARGER

Greenwood Press, Publishers Westport, Connecticut

The Library of Congress has catalogued this publication as follows: Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony, 1913-1966. The China of Chiang K'ai-shek; a political study. Reprint of the 1943 ed. published by World Peace Foundation, Boston. Includes bibliographical references. 1. China--Politics and government--1912-1949. 2. Chiang, Kai-shek, 1886- . I. Title. DS774.L48 1973 320.9'51'042 73-725 ISBN 0-8371-6779-5

Reprinted with the permission of World Peace Foundation First Greenwood Reprinting 1973

Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 73-725 ISBN 0-8371-6779-5

Printed in the United States of America

Acknowledgments, for a work of this type, are always insufficient and often ungracious. Today, political and military conditions forbid mention of some of the persons to whom I am most indebted. Furthermore, it is unfeasible to thank those teachers and friends who have prepared me in years past for the present work. Nevertheless, courtesy and candor demand that I indicate the extent of my obligation, and tender these inadequate thanks.

For interviews, hospitality and other kindnesses shown me in Western China I wish to thank Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang K'ai-shek; Their Excellencies, Sun K'ê, Yü Yu-jen, H. H. Kung, Wang Ch'ung-hui, Chang Chia-ngau, T. F. Tsiang, Yeh Ch'u-tsang, Kan Nai-kuang, Ch'ên Kuo-fu, Wang Shih-chieh, Ch'u Chia-hua, Hollington Tong, and Ma Chao-chun; Major Generals J. L. Huang and Ch'u Shih-ming; Bishop Paul Yu-pin; and Messrs. Foo Ping-shêng, Chên Ming-shu, Lo Chia-lun, Edward Bing-shuey Lee, Han Lih-wu, P. C. Kuo, Ch'ên Chih-mai, Kinn-wei Shaw, James Y. C. Yen, Wang Shen-tsu, Shuming T. Liu, Jen Shieh, Li Ch'in-shui, and Ma P'in-ho. Among the foreign community, I wish to thank the American Ambassador, Mr. Nelson Johnson, and Mr. E. F. Drumwright for their kind reception; and to thank Mr. Tillman Durdin, Mr. Theodore White, Mr. George Fitch, Dr. J. B. Tayler, Professor Frank Price, and Professor and Mrs. J. B. Slocum.

I feel myself peculiarly fortunate in having three such good, loyal friends as Drs. Chu Djang, Miao Chung-yi, and Yin Pao-yü, whose kindnesses to me have continued ever since our student days together at the Johns Hopkins.

Dean Shen Ch'un-lu, Mr. Tso T'ao-fên and their associates in the National Salvation movement; Colonel Ch'in Po-k'u of the Communist Party; Mr. Chang Peh-chuen of the Third Party; Dr. Carson Chang of the National Socialist Party, and other spokesmen for minority and unofficial groups were most generous with their time and information.

Messrs. You Shoo-tseng, Yang Chun, Wu Hsüeh-ping, Hawthorne Chen and others translated Chinese materials for or with me. Save for their help, so liberally and painstakingly rendered, this book would have been delayed for months if not years. These gentlemen are not to be held responsible for the selection of materials, nor for the translations in their present form, since I have sought to check and revise this work as far as time and my imperfect command of written Chinese have permitted.

The International Peace Campaign (China Branch), The People's Foreign Relations Association, The Chinese-American Institute for Cultural Relations, and other institutions in Free China were generous with their hospitality and facilities. I owe particular thanks to the Central Bank of China for the high courtesy shown me through the Chief Secretary and the following gentlemen: Mr. T. T. Wang, Chief of the Engineering Division; Mr. Ch'ên Yin-sung, Manager, Kiating Branch; and Mr. Yang Hsia-tz'ŭ, Manager, Chengtu Branch. The officers of the Bank went to enormous pains to ensure my timely, safe return to Chungking when I was ill, hurried, tardy, and in danger of missing my prearranged bookings back to America. Special acknowledgment must also be offered to Mr. C. C. Chi, for his unfailing kindness in providing interviews and trips, and to the China National Aviation Corporation for their unusual courtesies.

In Hong Kong, I was assisted by Dr. Eugene Chen, Dr. Wên Yüan-ning, Dr. Ch'en Han-seng, and Mr. Liu Yu-wan.

In Shanghai, Mr. T. Nakada of the Japanese consulate-general was most helpful.

Continue Reading →

Linebarger opens his study with an extensive acknowledgments section that reads like a diplomatic roster: Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang, cabinet ministers, military officers, and foreign correspondents are all thanked. This list is not mere courtesy—it signals the author's method. He gained access to the highest levels of the Nationalist government, and his analysis draws on firsthand interviews and documents rather than distant observation. The tone is that of a political scientist writing for a policy audience, but the voice is personal, even confiding, as when he notes that “political and military conditions forbid mention of some of the persons to whom I am most indebted.”

A Voice Between Insider and Analyst

Linebarger’s narrative voice shifts between detached academic and engaged participant. He refers to “my student days together at the Johns Hopkins” with Chinese friends, yet elsewhere deploys jargon like “extra-political pressure” and “Paretians.” This duality gives the text an unusual texture: the reader is never sure whether they are reading a policy brief or a memoir. The acknowledgments reveal a network of personal relationships that underpin the study’s authority, but Linebarger does not dwell on his own role. Instead, he lets the list of names—Sun K'ê, H. H. Kung, Chou En-lai’s colleague Ch'in Po-k'u—imply the breadth of his sources. The effect is a work that feels both intimate and institutional.

Pace and the Accumulation of Detail

The prose moves in long, dense paragraphs that accumulate names, organizations, and acronyms: the People’s Foreign Relations Association, the China Branch of the International Peace Campaign, the American League for Peace and Democracy. This piling-on creates a sense of overwhelming complexity, mirroring the fractured political landscape Linebarger describes. Yet within these blocks, he inserts sharp observations: “There is no Chinese C.I.O., nor A. F. of L., but there is also no National Association of Manufacturers.” The pace slows when he discusses specific groups—Christian missions, the Y.M.C.A.—and quickens when he turns to theoretical frameworks like the “double set of barriers” every government faces. This alternation between concrete reporting and abstract analysis gives the text a rhythm that rewards careful reading.

Recurring Motifs: Networks and Barriers

Two motifs recur throughout the excerpts: the idea of political action through “casual, untraceable patterns of personal relationships,” and the metaphor of government operating within a “corridor” bounded by the needs of the governed and the compensation of the governors. Linebarger returns to these images to explain how power actually functions in wartime China—not through formal institutions but through “scurrilous, politically vile, selfish advantages” balanced by “concrete improvement.” He is skeptical of ideological labels, noting that the International Peace Campaign in China had “no trace of defeatism” despite its leftist associations elsewhere. This insistence on local context, on how Western categories fail to capture Chinese realities, is a thread that runs through the work.

Readers should approach this study as a document of its moment—1942, when the outcome of the war was uncertain and the Nationalist government was still the legitimate face of China to the world. Linebarger’s closeness to his subjects is both a strength and a limitation: he reports what his informants told him, but the reader must weigh that against other accounts. The book is best read alongside works by the journalists he thanks, such as Theodore White, to triangulate the picture of a regime in crisis.

Those old Chungking interviews in The China of Chiang K'ai-Shek always reminded me of a certain fragile pamphlet, An Answer to a Question that Nobody thinks of, viz., But what if the Queen should Die? — Text and Context, for both whisper of succession’s quiet dread. Each assumes a world that outlives its careful plans, and I have held that shiver many times.